Tank birthday, 47+ years

[Paul B]

Carbon is great for adsorbing many things including toxins but I don't use carbon. I used it for many years but I feel it removes to many things that I actually want. It also contributes (a lot) to HLLE, but I think there are other factors involved in that too.

It is just another un-natural addition to tanks that many of us use that I feel is in some cases detrimental to water conditions for the reasons I said. There are thousands of chemicals in seawater, most we don't even know what purpose, if any they serve but carbon removes most of them in different amounts and I assume many of those things are a benefit to a tank.

I am not sure why my tank runs so good with no problems, no diseases etc. But
those unknown chemicals may be one reason.

Metals are one element we have in our tanks and I am sure with my NSW I have a lot of metals in there. Metals are needed in the exact proportions that are in NSW and our fish evolved with them. Metals are one thing carbon is very good at removing.

Of course I am guessing

 

[Dcal]

Down here we call 'em = sand fleas...or also known as mole crabs...great fish bait , btw ...

sand crabs out here
so funny watching all the kids catch them with their hands they get so happy

 

[Paul B]

Were invited out to dinner so I just baked a loaf of fantastic rosemary/Italian bread and I am making Manhattan clam chowder to bring.

 

[Miami Reef]

Were invited out to dinner so I just baked a loaf of fantastic rosemary/Italian bread and I am making Manhattan clam chowder to bring.

Wow. You really do like eating clams!

 

[Jekyl]

Manhattan clam chowder is the tomato base isn't it? The Boston version is by far my favorite soup.

 

[Paul B]

Wow. You really do like eating clams!

Yes, I eat what my fish eat, except for the worms. ;Vomit

Clams are one of my favorite meals and here on Long Island they are very common and are caught right here behind my house.

Jekyl, yes it has tomato sauce in it to make it red. I know most of the rest of the country never heard of Manhattan clam chowder but here in New York it is very common although we also get New England Chowder which is actually a lot easier to make but much more fattening.
Manhattan chowder is very healthy and we just like it so much better.

Besides that, I grew up on it because we had a sea food market.

 

[GeoSquid]

I have a friend who is a chef and he collect mole crabs (we call them sand crabs out here), batters and fries them in oil. He said they taste like shrimp. I have yet to try them though.

 

[Eagle_Steve]

I have a friend who is a chef and he collect mole crabs (we call them sand crabs out here), batters and fries them in oil. He said they taste like shrimp. I have yet to try them though.

Sand fleas are yummy. Eat ya some and then fish for pompano with the left overs lol.

 

[Paul B]

Yesterday I drove my wife to her therapy place and went to my favorite LFS near there.

The place as always is filthy. Many of the tanks have corals that are dead, dying or already turned into Alka Seltzer tablets.
About 50% of the fish have a little ich.

I love this place and he has been there for 50 years. I usually don't buy the dead corals but sometimes I get one half dead for free, break off the dead parts and sometimes it's a score. Usually it's just a dead coral but I could use it for rock.

I try to go there just after he gets a load of fish and I can, and do get copperbands for $25.00, firefish for about eight. You can't beat it with a stick.

I am not going for advice, fireside chat, Yoga or tea. If I want a fish, I go there and get it cheap. He always has an unusual selection and like I said, I don't have to live there. Occasionally I get a really good deal on a large coral like the large green one I got last week for about a quarter of what I can get it for elsewhere and a tenth of what I could get it for online with shipping and all that.

Ich doesn't bother me and disappears in 5 minutes. I still have some of his fish from many years ago.

Of course I wish he would clean up his coral tanks a little so I can at least buy something still alive but I rarely go there for coral unless I see something really unusual. I also wouldn't get 50' from the bathroom. ;Vomit

Another place 10 miles to the south of there is beautiful and very big, they even have a kangaroo or whatever you call those little ones, Walaby's.

He wanders all over the store. His fish, like most fish also have ich but his prices are much higher. Stupidly higher and the fish are no better.
To me $100.00 for a hippo tang is insane, especially when I can get them for about $25.00.

This guy I am sure gets his fish from a wholesaler where the cheap guy trans ships and has them delivered straight from the collector so they fish have not been in captivity as long.

Which one would you go to?

This guy and 4 others I bought last year were five bucks.

 

[Fredinva]

This is how I dress for all Veterans Days. I wore this shirt in the States before I went to Nam. (they wouldn't let us take anything home from there)
It's over 50 years old.

Now that I lost 25 lbs, it even fits.

Hello Paul,
Hmm, I've got jungle fatigues hanging in a closet upstairs. I brought home shirts, pants, poncho liners, and boots!
Wondering; do you worry about any type of pollution from the sea water you collect? At one time I researched major aquariums along the US coasts. From what I remember, only one, I believe Santa Monica, Ca. collects sea water from a long pipe extended out into the ocean. There may be others, just not sure!?
BTW, very sorry to hear of your long time friends passing. I have lost a couple neighbors this past few months. Not fun.
Take care my friend,
Fred

 

[Paul B]

Fred, nice to meet you. How did you get jungle fatigues? I had to leave the jungle and go through a passage way naked. Yes, not a pretty sight but I couldn't take home a copepod.

Then they gave me clean clothes to come home in. But I was still dirty.
Forget granades, M-16s and all that. The guys who got those home must have been in the Air Force or worked in Saigon in the mail division.
You must be sneakier or smarter than me.

As for seawater, I never worry about pollution. The places where they collect our animals are also polluted. Most of the stuff people worry like sunscreen, gas and oil is very over rated and besides that it floats.

Sewage is only in harbors or rivers in any amount where it is harmful. The rest of the sea has bacteria that will eventually destroy that stuff. In any amounts that would harm our corals anyway.

Of course the sea isn't pristine but it is a whole lot better than fake sea water which doesn't have a fraction of the chemicals the sea has even though the label says it does. There is stuff in seawater that no one knows if it is needed and in such small quantities that we don;t even know it's there like wash water from Christopher Columbus underwear.
My tank now is 100% NSW. No problems yet and I take it right from shore.

 

[Fredinva]

Fred, nice to meet you. How did you get jungle fatigues? I had to leave the jungle and go through a passage way naked. Yes, not a pretty sight but I couldn't take home a copepod.

Then they gave me clean clothes to come home in. But I was still dirty.
Forget granades, M-16s and all that. The guys who got those home must have been in the Air Force or worked in Saigon in the mail division.
You must be sneakier or smarter than me.

As for seawater, I never worry about pollution. The places where they collect our animals are also polluted. Most of the stuff people worry like sunscreen, gas and oil is very over rated and besides that it floats.

Sewage is only in harbors or rivers in any amount where it is harmful. The rest of the sea has bacteria that will eventually destroy that stuff. In any amounts that would harm our corals anyway.

Of course the sea isn't pristine but it is a whole lot better than fake sea water which doesn't have a fraction of the chemicals the sea has even though the label says it does. There is stuff in seawater that no one knows if it is needed and in such small quantities that we don;t even know it's there like wash water from Christopher Columbus underwear.
My tank now is 100% NSW. No problems yet and I take it right from shore.

Not sneakier than you, maybe just a better division: First Infantry - Big Red One.
Jk Paul......it was during the Tet Offensive. Came back to base camp, packed, showered, changed, then off to Bien Hoa for a flight home. BUT, they stopped commercial flights and we had to get on some dang big star lifter or something three days later. Flew to Okinawa to refuel, then on to Anchorage on Feb 6, had to deplane in sub freezing with short sleeve khakis. Finally, off to Oakland.
Cant remember if I kissed American soil or not.
Welcome Home, Brother!!

 

[Paul B]

Fred, LOL. I was in the high country on the Cambodian border and we went back and forth into Cambodia months before the people here knew we were there.

I was in the First Cav and never came out of the jungle untiI I went to Ton Su nut air force base for my TWA flight home.

We stopped in Japan and like you, Alaska. Bologna sandwiches on white bread with nothing on it for the 3 meals of the 24 hour flight.
I remember well kissing the ground when I got off the plane.

They left us off at 2 am in New Jersey without not even a nickel and no good bye.

I ETSed from there and if my family didn't pick me up, I would have had to hitch the 100 miles from there because all they gave us was a 15 cent subway token and as you know, there are no subways there.

Welcome home to you to Brother.

Sunday I am going to a brunch here honoring Veterans, I wish you could come.

 

[Paul B]

Today the local Moose Lodge invited me to a brunch honoring Veterans. I will be going there alone. My wife is having a routine colonoscopy today (yeah, I know) and she was up all night doing "stuff" and in an hour she is having the procedure.

She will be tired and hungry after that so I will go there myself. I never like going to those kinds of things without her but this time I will make an exception.

I hope all those "Moose Women" don't hit on me.

 

[Paul B]

The Moose Lodge brunch was great and they didn't even serve moose.

 

[Sean_B]

did you even see any Moose at the "sit-down"? sounds like you might have been mislead..........

 

[Sean_B]

I'm getting ready to make some "stuff"

 

[Paul B]

Nice bug.

 

[Mywifeisgunnakillme]

Manhattan clam chowder is the tomato base isn't it? The Boston version is by far my favorite soup.

Being from Maine, its really New England clam chowder... no one is clam digging in Bean Town trust me...

 

[Mywifeisgunnakillme]

Being from Maine, its really New England clam chowder... no one is clam digging in Bean Town trust me...

Any if you're on the West Coast, if you use a New England chowder recipe--but west coast (say West Port Washington) razor clams---oh my god, chunks of clam bigger than you thumb--that's about as good as it gets for chowder in the history of the world..